Do we have a civic duty to help stop the spread of fake news?

“Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.” — Mark Twain

From politicians to preachers, storytellers of all kinds have played it fast and loose with the truth for as long as there have been stories to tell. Thanks to social media, now everybody is a storyteller, and it seems most have taken Twain’s advice to heart.

Sharing content like news articles is one of the most efficient ways we tell stories online. When your uncle posts a Q-inspired video, he’s forwarding a narrative about American corruption and conspiracy. When your activist cousin posts an article about a politician’s latest misadventure, he’s joining his voice to a story of resistance.

But sharing does more than tell a story; it tells our story. People share not just to spread information but to signal to the world who they are and what they believe.

Here’s the big issue with all that: research shows that 59 percent of people who share these articles don’t even bother to read them. Instead, they look at the headline, decide that the article jives with the story they want to tell, and then push it out to their networks.

That’s fine if all you want to do is show people how much you care about whatever topic the article happens to touch upon. But what happens when that article you just shared is chock full of false claims and disinformation?

A (Tiny) Civics Lesson

Kids used to take civics in high school. Sadly, it’s rarely taught anymore in most public schools in the United States. Civics explores what it means to belong to a certain community and what kinds of expectations come with that belonging.

People who belong to the American community, for example, are expected to be good citizens by embodying virtues that serve others (honesty, patriotism, etc.). On the flip side, bad citizens embody vices that hurt the community (dishonesty, slander, etc.).

Thanks to digital media, the number of communities we can belong to has multiplied beyond anything we could ever fathom. And, the virtues and vices that define good and bad citizenship are all defined by whatever matters most to those communities.

This is the dynamic that’s given rise to “virtue signaling” online — the act of voicing an opinion not because you hold it but because you know your community expects you to.

And that’s a major contributor to the spread of misinformation online.

What We Owe Each Other

Mark Twain also said a lie will travel halfway around the world before the truth can even get its boots on. Propaganda and conspiracy theories cross the globe in seconds, not because folks have taken the time to evaluate them, but because they’ve read the headline and decided that’s the story they want to tell, or the virtue they want to signal.

These stories have consequences. In satisfying the online community, the sharer of fake news ends up throwing their offline community under the bus. Pizzagate and Plandemic are just two high-profile examples of online misinformation with offline consequences.

If we’re going to be productive members of an American community in which people respect and listen to one another, we have a civic duty to do our best not to mislead our neighbors. So, how can we stop playing to the crowd and start spreading only the articles we know to be solid and helpful to our broader community — online and off?

The first step is resisting the urge to share an article just because it fits with our view of the world or because we think our friends will agree. If you wouldn’t recommend a movie you’ve never seen, then why would you recommend an article you haven’t read?

The second step is to learn a bit about media literacy. When you do read an article, it’s important to know who you’re reading, what they’re saying, and why. If ever there was a time for critical reading skills, it’s now.

The third step is to solidify your understanding. Ask one friend what they thought of an article before you share widely. Even better, arm yourself with the latest technology, such as our Newstrition browser extension. Combining artificial intelligence with crowd-sourcing, this tool instantly grabs fact-checking data on articles, alerts you to potential red flags, and shows ratings from other users. It doesn’t tell you what to believe, it just arms you with the background info to make more informed choices.

Conclusion

It’s easy to read a headline, treat it like a tweet, and then share it out for everyone in our network to see. But we can’t forget that there’s an article under that headline. We have a responsibility to our neighbors — digital or otherwise — to make sure the content we share does more than tell a story we like or signal a virtue we want people to know we have.

With all respect to Mark Twain, please do let the truth get in the way of a good story.